Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.

Jatropha is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic experts for the project.

The current airline to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One really motivating advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers therefore avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving just to please somebody else’s green credentials.